The anglerfish and oarfish are two species known to live deep in the ocean. In January and February of this year, both fish have recently been discovered in more shallow waters. But why are these fish coming closer to the surface?
Oarfish
Let’s first talk about the oarfish. The oarfish, which was also known as the “Doomsday Fish “ was first seen on February 9, 2025 on a normal beach in Mexico, Baja California Sur on the Pacific Coast.
This weird fish appeared to have a shiny blue flat body with hot pink horns and was very long. It’s also electric and is harmful if it were to be handled by a person with no gear.
The oarfish lives deep in the sea and is very rare to see. A Japanese legend states that if you found one of these oarfish, seen so shallow in the water, then it would bring “doom” and bad water events such as tsunamis and earthquakes to the Earth.
Turns out, after this legendary fish sighting, there were big earthquakes. People started to feel scared and started to believe that the Japanese myth was true.
A group of Idaho citizens caught sight of the oarfish laying in the water as the waves pulled the oarfish closer to the surface. As found out, a woman thought it was an alligator or a shark due to its very long body and big size (they could grow up to about 36 feet long and weigh thousands of pounds).
This group of citizens also found out that the oarfish had a wound on its face and they took it to a doctor to see what could have hurt this oarfish.
One of the people in the group, Robert Hayes, stated that if you touch this oarfish, it is a mild shock when handled by people.
A friend of mine, Melina M stated, “A bigger animal in the ocean attacked the oarfish and sensed its electricity and the animal that attacked the oarfish probably thought it was a threat to them and so they could have attacked the oarfish.”
She also found out that sharks and bigger sea animals are the predators of an oarfish. This showed that this could be what harmed this fish.
People believed that this was a warning that so many rare sea creatures are showing up to shore, or showing us signs of something dangerous or big disaster coming from the ocean.
Anglerfish
This other fish sighting was seen on January 26, 2025 in the ocean off the coast of Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Laia Valor, a marine photographer, and his team were both were in the middle of a shark research expedition when they found the anglerfish.
Another friend of mine, Namra S, said, “I think that it’s dead and the anglerfish was trying to move up to the surface before it died. I think that it’s rare that it’s up to the ocean surface so there could only be one explanation to it that it got attacked by something. Or maybe it became an organism’s prey so that it caused its body to not move because it got hurt and can’t move its body due to too much pain.”
This anglerfish seemed to be heading into the light, dying while floating up to the shallow water. These kinds of fish are very deep in the ocean with their antenna having a big light to help them see.
Some anglerfish never even saw the light of day, but this one got to see the light one last time before it passed. Some people made these anglerfish seem so big and scary, but now we found out that they can be as small as your hand.
According to research from the internet, the anglerfish seemed to be a female. Researchers also found that this fish was known as the “Black Seadevil” due to its sharp teeth, weird shaped body, and light above its head.
Everyone on the internet felt sorry for the poor anglerfish because of how peaceful it passed away. Seeing the first light of day before the anglerfish passed away even made people cry.